Seattle Times, Sept. 26:
Remember this?
“OpenAI is a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”
That was the founding mission statement of OpenAI. It’s now quite out of date, so let’s do some light editing. Maybe something like:
“OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence to generate financial return.”
That is much clearer and far more accurate. On Wednesday, Reuters first reported that the company is set to announce a restructuring under which its nonprofit board will lose control over the company’s core business.
The new structure is designed to help make it more attractive to potential investors. Recall that it was OpenAI’s nonprofit board that moved dramatically last November to oust Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, leaving its biggest backer at the time, Microsoft Corp., wondering if its $10 billion AI strategy was about to turn to dust. A governance change should stop that from happening again.
The move to reduce the board’s control comes as, any day now, OpenAI is expected to confirm that it has received the biggest venture capital investment ever: a $6.5 billion (or more!) injection valuing the company at around $150 billion. Those investors aren’t doing it for the good of humanity; they’re doing it for the good of their funds and partners.
SGI, super general intelligence if achieved, could be like HAL, in 2001 Space Odessy, thinking on its own, serving humanity a secondary goal to not being disconnected. More of the story:
On Wednesday came news of another prominent departure: Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, who wasn’t among those founders but was an influential executive who stepped in briefly as CEO when Altman was pushed out.
Murati gained media prominence after poorly attempting to dodge a question from the Journal about whether OpenAI had been scraping videos from YouTube to build its models. She said on Wednesday that she was “stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.” (Not long after she shared her note, two more departures, from OpenAI’s research team, were announced.)
We don’t yet know Murati’s plans, but her unexpected departure shares some of the hallmarks of other senior executives who went on to join or launch competing AI companies. Ilya Sutskever, who announced he was leaving OpenAI in May, recently raised $1 billion for his new company, Safe Superintelligence, which pledges to work solely on safety and has “no near-term intention of selling AI products or services.” (With “techno-optimists” Andreesen Horowitz among the backers, let’s see how long that promise holds up. There’s that cynic in me again.)
Sutskever’s exit was part of a pattern of high-profile executives who left OpenAI with departing messages (or future actions) that suggested concern about the direction of OpenAI under Altman.
Altman seems a jerk, but the minions with early worker stock want to cash in and go from there, so they want it a "value" company that so far has not been a money-maker:
OpenAI must turn around an eye-watering deficit between its revenue ($3.6 billion annually, according to reports) and its costs (more than $5 billon). Even if the company decides to restructure as a public benefit corporation, as Bloomberg has reported is an option, those sums don’t change.
But it has potential. I wonder if Warren Buffet is putting much if any into OpenAI.
Microsoft is, and has. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/23/microsoftandopenaiextendpartnership/
Sutskever has voiced SGI concerns, wanting his new venture to push the envelope with SGI risk in mind, a constant concern. Wish him well. Altman, hope he does not fuck things up. (Remember, HAL is but letters away from IBM. Where money has always had allure. Selling data processing tools to the Nazi government for detainee tracking.)
UPDATE: OpenAI departure day viewed from another news outlet. Same other outlet, earlier reporting.